Tag Archives: confessions

Golden and sharp

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The law of the Lord is perfect,

reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure,

making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right,

rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean,

enduring forever;

the rules of the Lord are true,

and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

– Psalm 19:7-11

and take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. – Ephesians 6

We’ve been looking at the Ephesians 6 armor of God passage in church lately. My pastor said something in his message last Sunday that I want to remember:

“Many view the Bible as God’s manual for successful living. This is true in part, but the Bible does not give us what comes naturally, but what comes supernaturally.”

Read the Bible and you may become wise. Follow its teachings and you will very likely live more successfully. But if that’s the extent of it, you’ve missed it all.

There’s a reason the Bible is called the Word of God. These living, powerful, sharp-edged words aren’t just ink on a page. They will slice you in half if you’re not careful.

God uses this word in the unsuspecting believer’s life, if that word is appropriated, to bring unlooked for revival to the soul, to bring external, Godly wisdom to the simpleminded, to bring joy to a heart that has no natural reason to rejoice. The purity of God’s word brings light to our eyes, and clarity to our thinking. It will endure forever, and, though in my darkened reasoning I can’t always fathom it, it is altogether sure, clean, pure, true, and righteous.

A confession: I don’t feast on the word enough. I don’t know it like I should. I think the reasons are expressed, in a way, in the Psalm 19 passage above. Notice that the Bible, embodied in the law, testimony, precepts, etc., owns the action verbs. Letting God change me through his word means that I wasn’t able to change myself. I want the natural remedy, and the credit that goes with it. I want control of the pace and the nature of the change. Or at least my flesh does. The status quo is comfortable and safe, and I’m even OK with a slow change that turns me into a better person. God is uncomfortable and dangerous and he means to make me like Jesus. I yearn for that and fear it at the same time. You may feel the same way.

Oh, surrender already! May I desire this sharp, sweet, golden treasure like never before.

Vanity and sanctification

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Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. – Ecclesiastes 2:11

I’ve been reading Ecclesiastes lately, and pondering on vanity.

This can be a dangerous business. Through recent conversations with some friends who didn’t realize they were being used by God, but mostly through the long-running conversation that goes on inside me (you have one of those too, right?) I’m beginning to understand some uncomfortable truths about myself. God keeps reminding me. He sneaks into those conversations, often uninvited. He is a gentle teacher, but also very, very determined to get through.

To see myself as I truly am, with all the judgment I secretly heap upon others, with all the petty nonsense that takes so much of my mental energy, all the sloth that consumes me, all the vanity and thoughtlessness . . . this is hard. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that too. My spirit wants to do the right thing. My flesh is too lazy or disobedient to do it. “Redeem the time”. We live in evil days. And yet I expend energy on things that are truly vanity and chasing after the wind.

And I’m a slow learner. But I am thankful that I have a determined Savior, and that he is preparing for himself a people, of which I am a part, holy and blameless. Free.

That’s good news!

My confession

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I lose myself in “what-ifs”. This comes in waves, but this weekend I dealt with a number of “what-if” worries.

The what-ifs always involve my kids, and usually involve scary imagined scenarios in which they get hurt.

Nothing will steal the joy of the moment away from worrying about a million futures, which probably won’t even happen.

Plus, when I’m in What-If land, I am absolutely no fun. At all.

Worn out

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I’m pretty tired. For a lot of good reasons; and I mean “good” in the literal sense. There are some very cool things going on, family-wise.

Not being a natural writer, I find myself struggling for words. Bottom line, though, I think it’s time I take another break from the wider blogosphere. I have a love-hate-love relationship with the thing: I write blog software, for crying out loud, so I’m an enabler for the hundreds dozen or so people who actually make use of my wares. I’ve been writing posts here and elsewhere for six years. And I read a lot of blogs. And therein lies the problem, I think . . . I’m worn out. I’m becoming a “Yes, but . . .” type of person when reading opinion. Some blogs I read eat at me. I feel out of sync, out of touch, and the law of diminishing returns is kicking in.

So, my plan is to take a break from most of the other blogs I read, for awhile. Sometime tonight I’m going to take another sweep through my blogroll and cull most of it. I’m going to try and just concentrate on what’s going on around here, and perhaps write a bit more, here. I’ve got lots to say, but, again, the catch is taking the time to say them, in writing.

Off to work!

P.S. For your listening pleasure, Andrew and Molly singing Grace upon Grace.

iMonk on Contemporary Worship

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As my kids could probably tell you, I’ve been somewhat conflicted for the last few years about music in general and modern evangelical church worship in particular. This comes on the heels of seven very challenging and extremely fulfilling years working with student worship bands. I’ll never lose those memories. In hindsight (and every other kind of sight) I still look back on those years as wonderful and, for the most part, right where God wanted me. But that doesn’t mean that I have little, niggling doubts about some of the things I took part in back then, and the worship culture I experienced.

I can’t articulate them very well. But the iMonk does, . Good read.

“The only complete realist”

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Read today in church:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

– Hebrews 2:14-18 (ESV)

When I think of the Lord’s suffering, it’s common for me to concentrate on the last day of his life. This is what we call his Passion, when Christ endured the excruciating pain of torture, mockery, and execution for our sakes and for God’s glory.

I often forget that Christ’s entire life was part of his Passion. As the writer of Hebrews recounts above, Christ “suffered when tempted”, the only man who has ever resisted fully and completely the temptations common to us all.

C.S. Lewis has a great quote on this (and is there any quote from old Jack that isn’t great?); this was also shared from the pulpit today.

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness – they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means – the only complete realist.”

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

In contrast to this, I had a very weak day. Emotionally on edge, for reasons I’m not exactly sure of, I lashed out more than once today at those closest to me. I did a poor job of resisting the temptation to give into what my flesh was telling me to say. I’ve asked for and have received forgiveness, but the regret lives on.

Thank God that every new day is truly a “new day” when you’re in Christ. I’m going to bed tonight hoping to do better tomorrow, trusting in my great High Priest to continue molding me into the man he wants me to be.

Breathing the blog-free air!

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I’ve been breathing the blog-free air for about a week and a half now. It’s not a complete blog-abstinence – I’ve continued monitoring spying on interrogating reading my kids’ blogs, blogs of other family members, and two other blogs that edify me. But I’m no longer drinking from the daily firehose of the blogosphere.

All it took was me reading one last snarky, straw-mannish, ungracious comment on another blog to get me asking the question I should have asked a long time ago: “Why do I do this? What earthly good is the blogosphere, anyway?”

I realized there was no good reason for me to immerse myself in the blogosphere. I’ve been heavily into blogs for over four years now, and I’m not sure that the net effect has been good. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some tremendous blogs out there – there are. I will continue reading a very few of them, but I’m hoping I’ll be a lot more choosy. And hopefully I’ll stick with this.

You might think about taking a break from the blogosphere too. Try it, you might like it!

You don’t need to read blogs.

(Um, except for this one. Of course 🙂